This past weekend, Will and I went out shopping with the sole purpose of me starting a home herb garden. I’m really not sure what I was thinking, exactly. I’ve never been able to keep plants alive before I had cats (Olivia) who like to climb in them, eat them, or knock them off of tables. The only plant I’ve ever owned was a beautiful, leafy, potted plant that someone sent when my grandfather passed away that I managed to keep alive for over a year (I’d water it when it was droopy and kinda “dying-ish”) until Olivia came into my life. Once she discovered this tiny piece of the African Outback, she released the inner lioness inside of her and then proceeded to climb in it and bend all the leaves around and attack the plant like it was some kind of gazelle. After I moved it onto a small table to keep her out of it, she managed to chew all the leaves that were hanging down and knock the plant into the floor. (where I’m pretty sure she peed on the plant just to spite me) Needless to say, that plant had a pretty tough life. So what made me think I could actually plant and nurture something?? I honestly have NO IDEA, I just go this wild notion that it would be good for me and it would make me happy. Plus they kept running out of chives and basil at the grocery store.

We went over to our local garden store and took a look around. I ended up getting everything I needed for starting a small windowsill herb garden and also a packet of red Poppy seeds, because I like pressing my luck with the universe. After we got home, I set to work cleaning out my plantar, reading the instructions and planting little seeds to grow my own herbs to cook with. (and to hang my absurd hopes of one day having the ability to nurture a person. No pressure, little seedlings.) The first night I left the planters inside and the cat (Olivia) decided to LAY DOWN in the plantar and then kick some of the soil around. She also may have peed in it. I’m not sure. To avoid having to A) Replace all my seedlings or B) Replace my cat, I moved the planters outside into the shared stairwell. Her little coo didn’t seem to work, because so far, I must say that I am mighty pleased. What I think is the cilantro has sprouted first, all crazy like, followed closely by what I think is the tiny tip of a chive (eek!) and something else green is poking up in my plantar, but I’m not sure if it’s the basil or the parsley (I don’t have a labeler and I didn’t put on any cute labels or anything, I just stuck them in there and tried to remember which was which). My poppies have also started sprouting (double eek!) and I check these little plants EVERY DAY,(maybe twice a day) and spritz them with water, rotate the planters to spread the sunshine, and make sure they are never too dry. I’m more excited that I thought I would be and I’m now dreaming of other things I can grow. Do you think anyone would mind if I just built a raised plantar box right outside my front door in the stairwell??

I don’ t know about you, but I equate this little acheivement to mean that I could very well take care of a tiny human. A human that I only had to water and shift in sunlight.

I hope everyone hasn’t completely abandoned me, here. Sorry it’s been so long, but I’ve actually been busy. Will and I are going this weekend to buy a home computer, so hopefully updates won’t be so rare anymore. Plus, things are starting to find a nice rhythm at work since most of the snowbirds have settled. I figured that I would jump right back into the swing of things with a regular Furday Friday post. Will and I take the dogs to this dog park all the time and a few weekends ago, I finally decided to take my camera with me:

In the XB on the way. When we get close, both dogs like to stick their heads out of the windows. I’m sure they can smell the dog park from down the street since about a thousand dogs mark it with their pee about a million times a day. And this makes them happy. See:

Each time we go to the dog park, we take a gamble on the kind of “crowd” that will be there. We usually find a pretty good group of dogs there that are pretty friendly, but occasionally there will be an overly aggressive dog who just wants to dominate every other dog and their owner doesn’t know how to control them, so Guinness does. We’ve watched him break-up many potential fights and he always seems to put the more aggressive dog in place without even growling. It’s an amazing thing we’ve seen him do a dozen times for Mia and Shae alone. Some of the other “regulars” have even noticed and we’ve started calling him “The Enforcer” because he enforces peace in the dog park!! It really does amaze me how much personality that our dogs seem to have, and I love watching the quirks and small nuances of their personalities come through around other dogs. I don’t have any pictures of Guinness being The Enforcer, unfortunately, but I do have pictures of what a wuss he can be. In this dog park, they have a little “obstacle course” that the dogs can do. Guinness is afraid of them:

As you can see, he refuses to climb onto the structure and Mia just prances right up. That makes her Queen of the Mountain:

In other news, I also have recently fallen prey to the flu/cold/sickness that seems to be going around everywhere right now and I missed a couple of days from work last week. I tried to be productive since I was off and wasn’t totally dead and I had folded two loads of laundry before I decided that I’d had enough physical activity and was tired of sweating from the effort. I put the empty laundry basket on top of the fully folded basket of clothes to keep the cats off of it because, as anyone with cats can attest, clean laundry is a cat magnet. Case in point:

Of course Olivia climbs right into the empty basket on top of all the clean laundry. I don’t think she even made it 30 seconds before she did it, either. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she just materialized out of nowhere. I almost didn’t get up and get my camera out because I was hot, coughing, and longing to lay back down on the couch and dream of being able to breathe through my nose again one day. But I did and I’m really glad because some of these ended up as my favorite shots of her.

This past Friday, My Parents came into town for one night on their property search and we cooked dinner and made them watch The Transformers.(they had never seen it and that is akin to blasphemy in our home) (they liked it, btw)

Saturday we all loaded up with my parents and their two babies (can’t call them dogs) to the beach for the first time where there was a whole “beached jelly fish” drama and Will ended up putting a LIVE jellyfish into one of the trashcans before the dogs could either 1. step on it 2. pee on it or 3. (most likely) eat it. My parents didn’t stay around too long because they had to start their long trip back home, but Will, Nicole, Trent and I stayed with our dogs A LOT longer than we had anticipated and Will and I both ended up sunburned.

We had my office Holiday Party that night where we ate good food and played Wii (Will may or may not have made an 8 year old boy cry) and watched some boring football.

Will put in his two weeks notice at SB and gave away his last shift!!!! Apparently while we were out of town, a nearby SB closed and the employees were moved to other stores in the area and his hours got cut down to ONE 5 hour shift a week and we thought, well, what’s the effin’ point anymore?? So, no more second jobs for either of us!!!!!

We’re gathering boxes and starting to pack to move out of our town home and into an apartment at the end of the month. I don’t really mind the downsizing as much as I thought I would because the animals stay right where we are no matter how much living space we have, but there will be less carpet to vaccuum, less toilets to clean, and I won’t have to go up and down TWO sets of stairs to do laundry anymore so I’m kind of excited.

I was FINALLY able to get a couple of pictures of Trent and Nicole Friday night!!! Check it out, these are our new BFF’s!!!

Aren’t they adorable??? I love how Trent is purposefully NOT looking at me and trying not to laugh b/c he just KNOWS he’s going to end up on here!!

I mentioned before about getting my point and shoot that has the video capabilities on it while we were home in my last post and when I charged it up, I found THESE pictures from when Mia and Olivia were little!!! Enjoy even though they are blurry:

This one was taken the day we adopted Olivia (5/27/2006) the lady told us that the kittens were born on April Fool’s Day, so she was ALMOST two months old at this point.

And here she is playing with her collar on Will’s old “bachelor rug” from his old apartment a couple of months later:

In the old apartment, before we got any other animals, we used to play a game with Olivia where she would hide in the sink and we would try to sneak up on her. She would put her little paws outside of the sink and try to swat at us and it was too freakin’ cute!! I have some video of it on the old computer. (that isn’t working right now and I plan on getting it fixed one day) Anyhow, these pictures are me trying to get her cute little “hunter face”. Please excuse all the “red eyes” in these photos.

Here is one of Will holding Olivia right after we got her. This is also what Will looked like when we first started dating over THREE years ago. Isn’t he cute??

And finally we come to the JEWEL of all the pictures that I found on that camera – ONE LONELY little picture of Mia as a puppy. She is so freakin’ adorable I can’t stand it. Again, please ignore the eyes. I didn’t take the time in photoshop to edit any of these other than adding the borders. This was taken the day that we got her (8/19/06). We had JUST moved into our first apartment together as a couple, we already had Olivia, and Will really wanted to get a dog so we went and adopted Mia. Wouldn’t you have adopted this adorable face???

Well, that is all I have for today because it’s ALMOST time for me to go home from work and I have PLENTY to keep me busy there (cleaning, organizing, and packing). I’m still thinking about my Exposaroonie Challenge for this week and what to submit as my BEST PHOTO of 2008. I really have NO idea. I have taken SO MANY, how could I choose?? Of course, I’m sure it will have to do with one of the animals. I have made a promise to myself that once we get moved and settled into our new place, I’m going to challenge myself to take a picture EVERY DAY for 30 days and figure out how to do different processes in Photoshop. If you have any you recommend, let me know!

For any of you who may have actually missed reading what I have to say, I apologize. I tried to actually post a Mundane Monday post, but apparently my technical skills to hit the Publish button are sorely lacking and something crazy happened and my entire post was deleted – photos and all. (except for the first three and a half sentences) And it was a long post. And I had to upload the photos directly from the computer b/c my flickr account is full and I don’t want to pay to use it (I’ve since created a new photobucket account) so I couldn’t use the URL link and it took FOR.EV.ER. for the photos to load. So, naturally when the post disappeared, I was so pissed off that I didn’t bother to re-type it. (The draft is still sitting in my Draft box with three and a half sentences. Oh well.)

Moving on. We’ve been spending a good amount of time with our neighbors Trent and Nicole and their dog Shae lately. One of these days I’m going to get some pictures of the people, not just the dogs, but for now these will have to suffice:

These were taken last Friday night when Shae stayed over at our house while Trent and Nicole were out of town visiting her parents. Guinness was in heaven because he absolutely LOVES Shae. I tried to get a few pictures of them playing, but I had a hard time getting any good shots. Every time I would get close to them with my camera, they would stop playing and just stare at me. And they were both covered in dog slobber and that doesn’t look good in a photograph. Trent and Nicole let Shae up on the furniture with them (as a rule, we allow our dogs on the furniture if we invite them first) and the only way we could get him to calm down was to let him up on the couch. He hasn’t learned yet how to relax in the floor with the other dogs. He just stares at them and whines or stares at us and whines. So naturally we give in and cuddle with him.

Tuesday night I went over and picked Shae up after I got off work to watch him for a couple of hours until Trent got home from work. Nicole had a job interview earlier in the day and then had to work that night and they wanted to be sure that Shae didn’t spend his whole day in the kennel. Naturally I said yes and our dogs wore each other out. They also slobbered all over each other again to the point that I couldn’t put off giving both the dogs a bath. (also we’re getting ready to go back to GA to visit family on Saturday and I don’t want to have two dogs that smell like slobber) I didn’t get any pictures of Mia fresh from her bath because she dries so fast, but I did manage to get one of Guinness. (btw, these next few pictures were all processed the same because I really like the texture and I’m in a black and white kind of mood today.)

I have no idea why he looks like he is in trouble because he wasn’t. I think he thought he was going to have to go into the bath again, which he hates but he will be still for.

*This one was taken by Will – look at his skillz, yo!

**This one was also taken by Will and his mad photography skillz!! (mad skillz with a “z” I feel is totally appropriate. Shut up.)

Later on after Shae had left and the dogs had been bathed, the cats finally came out of hiding and wanted some time in the spot light as well.

We’re going to have dinner with Trent and Nicole tonight, so maybe I can snag some pictures of actual people instead of just animals. I also have a long task list of things that I need to get done before we leave Saturday morning that I will be working on. I can’t promise a Furday Friday this week (lets face the facts here people – you don’t care about what I have to say you just want to see my amateur animal photography) but I do promise lots of Christmas-y goodness to come and I’ll also be working on my Exposaroonie Challenge. I also want to try to create a bokeh that I saw over at Christina’s blog. Also, check out her photography blog. She has just recently launched her photography business and who doesn’t like some free publicity? (I’m sure all 4 of my readers will check her out.) While you’re busy clicking on all the links here, be sure to also check out Ashley’sre-vamped photography blog and see her new About Me video. These are the ladies whose photography I love and look to for motivation and inspiration. Stop by and leave them a comment or some encouragement because they are way too talented to question themselves as much as they do. Spread the love, people!!

** Check out my new side bar – I finally figured out how to add the widgets. Because it’s hard, you know. To click the button that says ‘add widget’. Hard stuff, people. Very technical.**

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Will and I went to April and James’ and had a very nice time, but it wasn’t the same for either of us. This was the first year EVER that we hadn’t been with our families on Thanksgiving. We really missed them. It makes me even more impatient for Christmas because we’ll be going home for 9 whole days!!

Anyhow, getting to the the four furry reasons I know you all visit here:

When we were getting ready to go to April and James’ for dinner yesterday, I had some trouble deciding which necklace to wear and I left the pearl one downstairs on the table since we were always running behind – and I came home to find the cats playing with them, so of course I snapped some pictures!!

Welcome to Furday Friday!! Today, you have a very serious duty ahead, to mediate the high profile case of Snarkygirl vs. Guinness the Bernese in case #u28j3901 “THE CASE OF THE APARTMENT SECURITY DEPOSIT”

Opening Statements, Snarkygirl, you may begin:

“As you all know, Will and I have been going through some financial distress recently and we are currently looking to relocate to a more cost-effective domicile. When we moved into this apartment, we were careful to explain in excruciating detail to the animals what we called the “No Property Damage” clause in their lease with us. We explained that they could live with us, free of charge, and we would provide them with food, water, treats, timed restroom breaks, exercise, “working” vacations, and all the love they could stand in exchange for unconditional love and they had to be my photography subjects 24/7. According to the terms of their contract, Will and I would pay the PET FEE to the apartment complex on their behalf with the understanding that they were not to cause ANY physical damage to the apartment what-so-ever. As you will clearly see by the documented evidence, they have broken that contract. What we are asking for here is simple justice.”

Opening Statements, Guinness:

“BARK”

Moving On. As you all may or may not know, Guinness has always been kind of a strange, yet lovable dog who manages to scuff up the walls, scratch up the furniture, and squeeze himself into the strangest spots to sleep. So, I present to you, the jury (or readers, whatever), documented evidenceof how the apartment walls, coffee table, and couch trim have all become victims to this incredibly adorable dog and his vicious sleeping habits.

Exhibits A, B, and C:

Guinness sleeping as a puppy. This is where the problems started:

In Exhibit D, you can see that, he has now decided to move his torment to the furniture as well as the walls:

And in Exhibit E, you can see that his behavior is starting to influence the other animals as well:

When will the torment end?!?!

So, in the pursuit of justice, I ask you, the jury to find the defendant GUILTY of being incredibly cute and destructive to property. The Plaintiff, Snarkygirl, is asking for punitive damages for breaking their contract and the damage to the apartment and furniture in the amount of 50 milkbones.

You now have a very serious decision in front of you, and I ask that you don’t make that decision light-heartedly. Please consider all sides of the case you heard here today and base your decision accordingly. Remember, these are MILKBONES We’re talking about, not just any run of the mill dog treat. Please give this case the consideration it deserves. You may leave your judgments in the comments.

I found this video on my myspace videos and I wanted to share it with you. Now please, keep in mind that this is 2:36 of your life that you will NEVER get back. To answer your other questions: 1. No, that is not a gerbil stuck in something inappropriate, it’s Olivia and I playing her favorite game between the cushions of my loveseat. 2. Yes, I really do sound that southern. I was born and raised in a small. Georgia. town. SMALL. GEORGIA. TOWN. 3. Yes, that is my evil laugh at the end. 4. Yes, I do think my cat has enough cognitive ability to cheat and I feel I must call her out on it at least 10 times. Nobody likes a cheater.

I am going to start out this post by saying SHAME ON ALL YOU!! I know that people are reading my blog because I can SEE on my dashboard that you are clicking on your GOOGLE READERS each time I post. Only TWO little comments on my birthday? I don’t know if I should be hurt or angry. Or both.

Just kidding!! I appreciate the comments I received from Nik and Christina, two awesome ladies whose blogs I love. The rest of you can delurk yourselves when you’re ready, I’m just glad you’re visiting!! I know I promised to tell you about my best birthday experience, but it just isn’t the same without the photos, and I cannot for the life of me, find them anywhere. I’ll give you the highlights, but trust me when I say the pictures are priceless.

My best birthday EVER was the year I turned FIVE (1985)!! My brother was about 9 months old at the time and my parents were throwing me a Strawberry Shortcake (again, mid-eighties here people.) themed party. I even had a red dress for the occasion and all my family and friends were coming. Well, my Mom, being the time-saving super mom she is bathed my brother and I together and he decided that it was the perfect time to poop. In the water. With me in it. Yeah, gross, right? So me being the five year old birthday girl/drama queen start squealing and jump out of the bath and get water everywhere and run around like a crazy child. My mom cleans everything up and starts over, succeeding this time to get two children clean. Then we go set up the party, Strawberry Shortcake plates, napkins, cake, etc. (My mom is a champ, for real)

My awesome birthday present from my parents was a Cabbage Patch Doll!!! I was so freakin’ proud of this doll that in an awesome picture you may never get to see, Heather (a friend of mine) and I were posing these awesome model/Charlie’s Angel poses with our cabbage patch dolls with her little brother Brian doing an MC Hammer-esque crossed arms rap pose. We all look so serious, it’s hilarious.

Anyhow, what made it my best birthday ever was all the trouble my parents went through to set it all up and they gave me the coolest things. Unfortunately, my parents are quick learners and once they realized how much trouble it was having huge birthday parties, we didn’t do that again. Most of my other birthdays were spent at Six Flags or the Fair because that meant less cleanup!!

On to Furday Friday!! This week I will once again show some guest babies – My Mom’s dogs, Samson and Missy. Enjoy!

First up is Missy. If you remember, she is the Pom that my mom rescued from a puppy mill. She is so cute and has that tongue that hangs out all the time.

This picture is of me holding her right after my mom got her. Mom had taken her to the vets office and had her groomed and had her health checked out. She was overweight and has a heart murmur, but she’s in good hands. I don’t know why it’s blurry or why my Mom picked this one to send me, but whatever:

Samson is my mom’s baby. Seriously. She has had him since 1997/98, I think. She bought him from a really nice breeder as a puppy and he’s been around ever since.

He needs to be brushed in this one, but he’s so cute it doesn’t really matter.

And of course, no Furday Friday would be complete without pictures of my babies:

Mia, in her favorite spot:

Sammy with his favorite blanket:

Guinness still looking terrified but nailing his new trick and doing a little product placement:

As promised, here is Furday Friday!! This week we are doing something a little different….we are featuring GUEST DOGGIES!! These are pictures of other furry “babies” in my life that I have taken a while back, but edited today!

First up is Sophie. She is CJ and Mandy’s dog that they got right before Mandy graduated college and moved in with me for a few months:

The Next “baby” is Murphy. He is April and James’ Rottie. These pictures were taken the first time we introduced our “children” and Mia and Guinness’ first trip to the beach:

Mia giving Murphy a ninja kick to the face!! Chuck Norris who?? Being a ninja runs in the family, I guess.

This next guest is Twinkie. She is Don’s (my previous boss in Ga) baby. He has shared custody of her with my Mom. It’s a really cute arrangement because Twinkie comes to work with Don everyday and on some days, she will follow my Mom out to her car, jump in and run away if Don tries to get her. She does this about once a week…it’s kinda cute.

And of course a Furday Friday wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t feature AT LEAST one of My babies:

This is my favorite photo of Olivia from BEFORE I got my Nikon. It was taken on my Kodak Easy Share, but I LOVE the expression on her face. We had just gotten them a new toy from PetSmart and she was getting pissed off at it and you can actually SEE the frustration on her face. It’s a classic:

This is the VERY FIRST PICTURE I took when I got my Nikon D40. I had LITERALLY just taken it out of the box and Olivia decided she wanted to model for Me from INSIDE the camera box:

And in honor of Nik’sFunky Photo Friday, I have a picture of Me, Will, Mandy, and CJ from My brother’s 22nd birthday. We went to a sushi restaurant in Atlanta called Nakato’s. It was AWESOME!!

2007

I have no idea why CJ and I both look high in this picture, but I swear weren’t, Mom. Look at Will – he’s so hot!! I love my man!! >kiss< Now he has shaggy hair and I can’t decide which look I like better….oh well.

Got fired from Publix for calling out tonight – details in a later post

The copier has jammed on me TWICE and spilled powdered toner all over me and everything in sight

My soup for lunch was crappy – not a big deal but not helping my already crappy day

All I feel like doing is sleeping but since I’m at work, I can’t.

I really hope this Monday is being nice to all of you and to prove that, I will leave you with some pictures from this weekend that I edited today:

I caught this rare moment that Olivia wasn’t being a total bitch and was actually being kinda sweet to Sammy. They took turns grooming each other and the SECOND Olivia realized I had my camera and was paying attention to them, she darted under the table and hid and shot me dirty looks:

So what did Sammy do?

We had to put a little bit of that Ph solution in Guinness’ ears because he is very prone to ear infections, so of course they got pictures, too:

Mia is checking on Guinness because he is in the process of rubbing his head all over my floor to try and rub that solution out. I thought it was really cute, so I tried to get some good pictures, but of course Mia kept getting in the way. She HAS to be the center of attention all the time:

So, enjoy these lovely pictures and then visit some of the blogs listed on my blogroll if you are interested in who I read. Also, I have noticed that a lot of you have clicked the link on my Myspace profile, but alas, mine is private. If you have a profile, just add me as a friend. My profile is private because someone in Texas kept checking my profile like 12 times a day EVERYDAY and I don’t know anyone in Texas. It was getting creepy, so as long as you’re not THAT person, send me a friend request. I’m sure I’ll approve.